Issue 45 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Aug/Sept 2022 Tidewie USV Tupan | Performance monitoring | Bayonet 350 | UAVs insight | Xponential 2022 | ULPower UL350i and UL350iHPS | Elroy Air Chaparral | Gimbals | Clogworks Dark Matter

17 Platform one Uncrewed Systems Technology | August/September 2022 The Exploration Company is using a mid-band satellite terminal for a key test of its autonomous reuseable space capsule (writes Nick Flaherty). The Nyx capsule is designed for orbiting the Earth for 3 to 6 months with payloads up to 4000 kg, as well as landing on the Moon to resupply a lunar base with a cargo of 1600 kg. A subscale re-entry demonstrator of Nyx will be launched on the maiden flight of the new Ariane 6 rocket later this year. Once in orbit, the capsule will detach and begin re- entry to Earth. The data from the test flight will be relayed via the Iridium Next satellite network using a Certus DLS-100 transceiver from Skytrac. The transceiver weighs 742 g and is capable of real-time command and control, telemetry streaming and photo/video transmission with 22 kbit/s uplink speeds. As the capsule is an unrecoverable technology demonstrator it will crash into the sea after collecting and transmitting the data.  “Starting at an altitude of 360 miles, the capsule will collect data from systems and sensors, which will be transmitted over the Iridium network to the ground from the DLS-100,” said Thomas Nussmann, lead avionics and power engineer at The Exploration Company. “The ruggedised data link will provide the low latency, global, and reliable satellite connectivity the capsule requires to conduct this demonstration.” Space systems Dr Donough Wilson Dr Wilson is innovation lead at aviation, defence, and homeland security innovation consultants, VIVID/futureVision. His defence innovations include the cockpit vision system that protects military aircrew from asymmetric high-energy laser attack. He was first to propose the automatic tracking and satellite download of airliner black box and cockpit voice recorder data in the event of an airliner’s unplanned excursion from its assigned flight level or track. For his ‘outstanding and practical contribution to the safer operation of aircraft’ he was awarded The Sir James Martin Award 2018/19, by the Honourable Company of Air Pilots. Paul Weighell Paul has been involved with electronics, computer design and programming since 1966. He has worked in the real-time and failsafe data acquisition and automation industry using mainframes, minis, micros and cloud-based hardware on applications as diverse as defence, Siberian gas pipeline control, UK nuclear power, robotics, the Thames Barrier, Formula One and automated financial trading systems. Ian Williams-Wynn Ian has been involved with uncrewed and autonomous systems for more than 20 years. He started his career in the military, working with early prototype uncrewed systems and exploiting imagery from a range of uncrewed systems from global suppliers. He has also been involved in ground- breaking research including novel power and propulsion systems, sensor technologies, communications, avionics and physical platforms. His experience covers a broad spectrum of domains from space, air, maritime and ground, and in both defence and civil applications including, more recently, connected autonomous cars. Professor James Scanlan Professor Scanlan is the director of the Strategic Research Centre in Autonomous Systems at the University of Southampton, in the UK. He also co-directs the Rolls-Royce University Technical Centre in design at Southampton. He has an interest in design research, and in particular how complex systems (especially aerospace systems) can be optimised. More recently, he established a group at Southampton that undertakes research into uncrewed aircraft systems. He produced the world’s first ‘printed aircraft’, the SULSA, which was flown by the Royal Navy in the Antarctic in 2016. He also led the team that developed the ULTRA platform, the largest UK commercial UAV, which has flown BVLOS extensively in the UK. He is a qualified full-size aircraft pilot and also has UAV flight qualifications. Uncrewed Systems Technology’s consultants Satcom test for orbiter One application for the Nyx capsule will be to orbit the Earth for 3 to 6 months at a time